Nine experienced cross-country skiers hurriedly left their tent on a Urals slope in the middle of the night, casting aside skis, food and their warm coats.

Clad in their sleepwear, the young people dashed headlong down a snowy slope toward a thick forest, where they stood no chance of surviving bitter temperatures of around minus 30 degrees Celsius.

Baffled investigators said the group died as a result of a compelling unknown force  and then abruptly closed the case and filed it as top secret.

The deaths, which occurred 49 years ago, remain one of the deepest mysteries in the Urals. Records related to the incident were unsealed in the early 1990s, but friends of those who died are still searching for answers.

If I had a chance to ask God just one question, it would be, What really happened to my friends that night? said Yury Yudin, the only member of the skiing expedition who survived.

Yudin and nine other students from the Ural Polytechnic Institute embarked on the skiing expedition to Otorten Mountain in the northern Urals on Jan. 28, 1959. Yudin fell ill near Vizhai, the last settlement before the mountain, and was left behind.

What happened next has been reconstructed from the diaries of the rest of the group and the photographs they took. Copies of the diaries, photos and investigators records were reviewed for this article.

The skiers, led by Igor Dyatlov, 23, set up camp for the night of Feb. 2 on the slope of Kholat-Syakhl, a mountain next to Otorten. They pitched their tents at around 5:00 p.m., investigators said, citing photos that they developed from rolls of film found among the abandoned belongings.

Why the nine skiers picked the spot is unclear. The group could have detoured just 1.5 kilometers down the mountain to a forest, where they would have found shelter from the harsh elements.

Dyatlov probably did not want to lose the distance they had covered, or he decided to practice camping on the mountain slope, Yudin said by telephone from Solikamsk, a town near Yekaterinburg, where the institute, now named Ural State Technical University, is located.

When the group left the institute for the expedition, Dyatlov promised to send a telegram as soon as they returned to Vizhai from Otorten Mountain, which he said would be by Feb. 12.

But Yudin said Dyatlov told him when they parted ways that the group would probably return a few days later than planned.

As such, no one was worried when the group failed to reappear on Feb. 12.

Only on Feb. 20, after relatives raised the alarm, did the institute send out a search-and-rescue team of teachers and students. The police and army dispatched their airplanes and helicopters later.

Puzzling Evidence

The volunteer rescuers found the abandoned camp on Feb. 26.

A photo developed from a roll of film found at the camp shows skiers setting up camp at about 5. p.m. on Feb. 2, 1959.

We discovered that the tent was half torn down and covered with snow. It was empty, and all the groups belongings and shoes had been left behind, Mikhail Sharavin, the student who found the tent, said by telephone from Yekaterinburg.

Investigators said the tent had been cut open from inside and counted traces of footprints from eight or nine people in meter-deep snow. The footprints had been left by people who were wearing socks, a single shoe or were barefoot.

Investigators matched the footprints to the members of the group, saying there was no evidence of a struggle or that other people had entered the camp.

The footsteps led down the slope toward the forest but disappeared after 500 meters.

Sharavin found the first two bodies at the edge of the forest, under a towering pine tree. The two Georgy Krivonischenko, 24, and Yury Doroshenko, 21, were barefoot and dressed in their underclothes.

Charred remains of a fire lay nearby. The branches on the tree were broken up to five meters high, suggesting that a skier had climbed up to look for something, perhaps the camp, Sharavin said. Broken branches also were scattered on the snow.

The next three bodies Dyatlov, Zina Kolmogorova, 22, and Rustem Slobodin, 23 were found between the tree and the camp. The way the bodies were lying indicated that the three had been trying to return to the camp.

The authorities immediately opened a criminal investigation, but autopsies failed to find evidence of foul play. Doctors said the five had died of hypothermia. Slobodins skull was fractured, but the injury was not considered fatal.

It took two months to locate the remaining skiers. Their bodies were found buried under four meters of snow in a forest ravine, 75 meters away from the pine tree. The four Nicolas Thibeaux-Brignollel, 24, Ludmila Dubinina, 21, Alexander Zolotaryov, 37, and Alexander Kolevatov, 25  appeared to have suffered traumatic deaths. Thibeaux-Brignollels skull had been crushed, and Dubunina and Zolotarev had numerous broken ribs. Dubinina also had no tongue.

The bodies, however, showed no external wounds.[…]

(This incident also has a wikipedia page. Thanks to Joe McNally for sharing this.)

About Loren ColemanLoren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013.

Related Posts

36 Responses to “Ural Mystery”

Very interesting, Loren, thanks for sharing this with us. As a bit of pure speculation, the one who seemed to have climbed a tree could have been trying to escape whatever they were fleeing. The loss of a tongue is very odd, indeed, though. The account and details on the Wikipedia page are intriguing. One thought that occurs to me, after seeing the mention of the orange balls of light is ball lightning. Anyway, fascinating stuff, and fun to speculate on.

Very interesting. I’d like to see a good movie of this with a happier ending.

The Wikipedia link was also very informative.

My guess is the campers may have heard and felt vibrations from a military rocket. Woken from sleep in the middle of the night they probably thought avalanche which meant moments to escape.
Disorientation as a result of hypothermia and weather conditions may have been an important contributing factor.

We can rule out a mangey bear, since the Pennsylvania Fish & Game doesn’t have jurisdiction. We can rule out the American Bigfoot since they are generally benevolent, polite and are just trying to get along. We can rule out the little people because they are not likely strong enough to inflict serious injury, nor are they inclined to do dastardly deeds. Sounds like it was some extraterrestrial malevolent force similar to as was associated with deadly blue orbs in “Hunt for the Skinwalker” by Kelleher.

Wow, this really is a bizarre story. I love these types of mysteries, like the missing colony of Roanoke Island, Virginia, or the mysterious tale of the Marie Celeste. Taking the little clues left behind and trying to piece together what happened is fascinating to me. At first, I thought maybe intoxication had been involved, but the last three bodies puzzle me. A fractured skull and missing tongue would have been one heck of a party. Hmmm, I’ll have to give this one some thought.

Ceroill, I’m curious about your ball lightning theory. How do you think that would account for the internal injuries found here and the missing tongue? And wouldn’t ball lightning have left behind external injuries such as burns? I’m not trying to attack your idea, I’m just genuinely interested in this kind of speculative throwing around of ideas and want to know in more detail why you think so.

If you read the Wikipedia page ( and Wikipedia itself practically hands you a grain of salt with which to read it), then you could easily come to the conclusion of an extraterrestrial “attack” on the group. It is curious that the article Loren has shown us mentions nothing about radiation, strangely pigmented skin, balls of light… Could it be that this professional journalist – as opposed to our mysterious wiki-writer – is less adept at pursuing all details, regardless of their significance, to gain a clearer understanding of this mystery? I think not. It is likely that in the intervening 49 years, the story grew larger as hoaxes and misinformation piled up. It is is a scenario with many precedents in the annals of both UFOlogy and Cryptozoology. As a writer, I must agree . . . It would make a damn good story, right?

Mystery Man, sorry I didn’t mean to imply that ball lightning was a complete explanation. But it might account for the balls of light, the strange ‘tan’ on the skin, and the general fright and disorganized behavior. Even perhaps the speculated blindness mentioned at one point. As to the last three bodies, the missing tongue and the nasty wounds, that does speak of intentional action on the part of someone or something else. And if, as the medical report said, the crushing damage could not have been done by a human, that does bring to mind the old stories about the taboos and legends of that mountain. All very fascinating and mysterious, I agree. And like you I love this kind of stuff.

Actually the radiation, lack of clothing, cutting their way out of the tents (instead of using the doors), balls of light, etc. all come (to my understanding) from the government report released in 1990. I also read newspaper articles about this and the same material is covered there (so it isn’t just a wiki-dream.)

Throw in no external injuries but intense internal injuries, the fact everyone went out with no shoes (or one shoe in one case), and the fact that these folks had experienced guides, and it is very very odd. It could have a rational explanation but the radiation alone lends itself to a “What the?” conclusion.

Also, just to add to the fun and Creep Factor, they were headed to a place whose name translates to something like “Forbidden Place” in the Mansi tongue (indigenous people who live there) and were attacked on a place whose name is translated to “Mountain of Death”.

AND the Mansi have a legend of nine men killed on the mountain by evil spirits…hmm…if the one guy who survived hadn’t been left behind at the last town (thus leaving the group at 10), would everyone have made it?

Oh…and if you didn’t, make sure to check out the grainy black and white photos recovered from one of the hiker’s cameras. Mucho creep factor.

Interesting ideas, Ceroill. In a situation like this, with all of these bizarre clues, your theory carries as much weight as anyone else’s and indeed it sounds like a plausible cause for those phenomena you mentioned. I’m starting to think that what we are seeing here is more than one thing, a series of events if you will, that all just happened to transpire at around the same time. Just exactly what those separate phenomena might be, I’m still considering. here is one possible scenario.

For the groups without missing tongues, I am thinking that maybe one of their party somehow became separated from the camp and perhaps called for help. Hearing the panicked cry for help, some of the party members went to investigate and for whatever reason could not find their way to camp, whereupon one climbed up the tree to see if they could see it. The ones clad in their underwear went out to see where the others went, probably just thinking they were going to take a peek and be right back (hence the lack of clothing) and not realizing that they too would become victims of the elements. I’ve made quick forays outside on cold winter nights in just my jammies myself, simply because I knew I would be right back. Perhaps that happened here and something went wrong. Around the same time, you get this ball lightning or whatever that causes more disorientation and further compounds their efforts to get back to camp. Thinking they were hopelessly lost, they try to make a fire, but it is too late to stave off the elements.

It’s plausible. I’ve read stories of adventurers getting lost and dying when all along they were right nearby a highway, civilization, or their camp. There’s no telling what sort of stresses they were under and what effects those would have on them. As for the group that more violently met their demise, that is more baffling to me. Maybe there WAS foul play involved and it just happened to come to fruition just as the other events were unfolding.

Hmmmmm. This is a great story. I’m finding myself quite involved in going over in my mind what could have happened to these people. I am looking forward to any further ideas the others who have already posted or different commenters come up with. All in all, I don’t think there is any one single explanation for everything we see here.

The problem with this mystery is the three last bodies found. If it weren’t for the missing tongue and crushed ribs this mystery would be lost to history. What one explanation settles for some of the bodies, it doesn’t answer any questions for the other bodies.

These were experienced cross-country skiers and had to know that their chance of survival without any gear in the sub zero temperatures in the wilderness were slim to none. Which leads one to believe that what ever scared them had to be something truly horrifying.

Also that fact that none of them remained behind in the tent also is another mystery within itself. If I were out camping on a night like that, it would take nothing short of the hand of God to get me to run into the night in nothing but socks and sleep wear. So the fact that none were brave enough to stay with the food, clothes and booze, speaks volumes to what must have caused them to flee.

There are a few inconsistencies about the story I’m curious about. If the first two were dressed only in their underwear, how did they start a fire? If they were in such a hurry that they (mostly) didn’t even take shoes, would they have thought to grab some matches? The article mentions that the tent was cut from the inside. How do they know? Maybe there’s a forensic way to determine that, but fabric cuts I’ve seen look pretty much the same from either side. Also, was there more than one tent? The article says “tent” in both singular and plural. Could be a translation problem, I guess. The injuries could be consistent with running downhill in the dark (the moon phase isn’t mentioned) and hitting trees. It’s a stretch, but even the missing tongue might be explained that way if the person had been running with her mouth open when she hit something. She might have bitten off her tongue.

Lastly, were the bodies tested for drugs? Not that they might have been taking drugs intentionally, but could any of their trail food have been grains or bread (rye bread especially) contaminated with an ergot fungus? If so, the results would have been very much like an LSD trip. What were the symptoms of the skier they left behind because of illness?

I was reading about this yesterday and now today makes me wonder. Could the injuries to the three found later have been caused by being buried under 4 meters of snow? Further, is it possible that the person’s tongue could have been cut by their teeth if enough pressure or force is applied? The lack of external injuries might suggest that they were dead before the internal damage was done, resulting in a lack of external bruising or other damage. The intriguing bit is the skin color and the radiation. Interesting mystery indeed.

Could this be evidence that a Eurasian bigfoot like creature, maybe the Alma is considerably more malevolent than it’s North American cousin. Something terrible must have frightened these people and led to their deaths from hypothermia or a even more grislier fate.

You make some interesting points Mystery_Man but it fails to take into account the “reported facts” (for instance, shoelessness was true for everyone – or at least only wearing one shoe). Looking only at the facts what you are left with is:

– Everyone raced out of their tents at the same time, not even taking time to put on shoes (or in at least one case, he got 1 shoe on and gave up.)

– The thing that caused them to act made them think that going out the door of the tent was a bad idea, so they cut their way out the side. You typically only do this when there is a specific, directional threat or the door is somehow blocked.

– Temperatures were absolutley frigid. Only a very strong and compelling driver could have pushed them out into the cold without proper gear AND convinced them to slice their tent up (which they counted on for protection from the elements.)

– The people who were injured showed, in all three cases, no external sign of injuries, strongly limiting what could have caused their internal injuries.

– Family memembers claim that the hair on the bodies had turned gray

– High levels of radiactivity were found on the clothes of some victims.

– Investigators found no sign of an avalanche.

The other issues remain questionable. Hypothermea can make you strip your clothes off because you feel hot. It can also cause skin discoloration and trouble reasoning (building a fire with wet wood with dry wood nearby.)

The thing that bothers me is stretching what is known to force a “rational” explanation as much as folks who “want to believe” stretching the facts to find a paranormal explanation.

Damage to the bodies may be from running /falling downhill into rocks and or trees. Ribs and skull portions of humas do not have very much fleshy tissue to protect. Ribs can absolutely be broken with less force than produced by being hit with a car. Remember the movie “Rocky” ?

If the entrance flaps were tied together (likely) with multiple ties it would have taken time to untie them and exit via the entrance.
I have no explanation for the radioactivity or gray hair. Can radioactivity cause gray hair?
My third post on this topic. I’ll try to stop but this is so very interesting.

Endroren- Of course my scenario has a lot of holes, and I’m aware of how it doesn’t cover all of the facts. I certainly don’t think that is exactly how everything really went down. I’m just throwing ideas out, seeing what sticks. I do not think there is any easy explanation for what transpired here.

I can’t stop either, Camperguy. I think you make some very valid points that could help explain some things and still fit into my original scenario.

Perhaps one got separated from camp and somehow banged his head to produce the fracture described. It was deemed as a non life threatening fracture by officials, so he would have been able to call from help, but might possibly have not been able to move. His friends heard his cries and went out to find him, in the process getting disoriented and lost.

The others hear the ones in trouble and maybe go out in minimal clothing just to check out what happened, but they become lost too. Maybe it’s dark, maybe they are intoxicated, who knows why, but they can’t make it back to camp. One climbs up the tree to see if they can find it and they make a fire hastily realizing that the elements are going to do them in quickly if they don’t. I certainly don’t think they would have taken the time to try and make a fire if there was a terrifying threat that caused them to flee in a hurry. Why rush from your tent in your clothes to escape something and them stop to climb trees and make a fire? The other group could have met the same fate, sort of a domino effect of people getting lost and spurring others to go get them in turn getting lost themselves.

Some of the mysterious points and their possible explanations, in my opinion-

1) The missing tongue. Camperguy had a very valid point about animals doing this. Any body left out in the open in the wild could be subject to a scavenging animal, and soft tissue like the tongue would be exactly what they would go for first. The only problem with this idea is that the other bodies showed no such signs, and I would think if an animal was involved, there would perhaps be more tissue consumed.

2) The cut open tent. This could be because the front of the tent wasn’t easy to open for some reason, for example ties like Camperguy mentioned, or a jammed zipper. If you heard your friends shouting for help desperately, one might be inclined to cut out the side for quick exit. I don’t necessarily think there was a single ominous threat that would lead to this action.

3) The radiation and grey hair. It has been mentioned that ball lightning could have been involved, or perhaps it was some other little understood atmospheric phenomenon. If this is the case, I do not think we know enough about them to be able to rule out that they could not leave traces of radiation or have strange effects like the greying hairs.

4)Lack of external injuries. There are instances where people have fallen, slightly fractured their skull, and not even known that it had happened. In Japan where I live, a lady crashed into a light post but suffered no external injuries. She went home and went about her business, but ended up dying suddenly later on. It was because her skull had been fractured in the accident. She had no idea she had incurred it and had suffered no external injuries. My point is, there are precedents for this sort of thing.

5) Experienced hikers getting lost close to camp? Yes. I mentioned before that hikers have becoming disoriented and confused and actually died when all the while they were right near camp or civilization. While I’ll admit an amateur would be more likely to have this happen, it could happen to experienced adventurers too under the right circumstances.

6) The lack of shoes on everyone present. Hmmmm. Not quite sure about that one.

A lot of people are saying that it must have been some immediate, singular threat without saying what that threat could have been. I don’t think there is any thing to make me suspect that over everything else. The seeming fact that they took time to climb a tree and stop to make a fire actually to me points against them trying to wildly flee something.

I think this may have started as a person in the party getting separated from camp, and in the process of everyone else getting lost in an attempt to find them, things got weird.

7) Out in the winter in their jammies. I can imagine this happening if they were desperate to help and thought they would be right back, like I said in my previous post. It’s odd, sure, but people can do odd things under severe stress.

If fleeing the area due to a human or animal threat lingering in the area would not be likely. Fire acts as a beacon at night and would alert any type of pursuer exactly where the group was.

I do not believe the group ever felt theatened by any type of animal nor do I feel they had any lingering sense of danger.

I’d very much like to know what the tracks indicated upon exiting the tent. Did they huddle together until all were out and then walk or did they bolt out running. Did they scatter or stay together? Where was the knife that cut the tent open found? Was the knife left in the tent or taken along?
Light conditions? Had the snow storm ceased with clear skies and a full moon? Cloud cover,snowing & no moonlight?

I’d also like to know if it is certain that the fire and evidence of the tree being climbed correspond to when the incident actually happened. Maybe they made the fire a few hours before hand? Same with the tree? I’ve been getting a nagging feeling that they could very well have happened sometime before and thus would not be pertinent to whatever happened to these people. I’m thinking the proximity of the tree and fire to the bodies pretty much allows us to somewhat assume they were, but I just don’t know for sure. If it is pertinent then the fire really gives me pause about the idea that they all freaked out and fled the camp, as I do not believe they would have had the presence of mind to stop on the camp’s periphery and build a fire in that situation. I’ve also been considering the scenario that the man with the non-lethal fractured skull could have gotten the injury from falling from the tree after trying to locate camp. Also, the ball lightning could have happened and contributed to the disorientation everyone had as well as leaving the residue of radiation. This is all complete speculation of course, I’m just throwing ideas out. I’m aware I could be way off.

The unpreparedness is really one of the biggest enigmas for me here. I can understand that a few might have popped out in minimal clothing because they did not expect to be outside long, but the whole group? That none of them had the presence of mind to put on shoes in freezing temperatures, regardless of the urgency they felt, is very perplexing to me.

An alternative scenario is that maybe there was a sort of weird, atmospheric phenomena that caused the lights and they all freaked out and fled in an unprepared state? Then, when they saw that the phenomena had stopped, they tried to make their way back to camp but got lost, whereupon they built a fire to stay warm and climbed the tree to locate camp. That is when one of them might have fallen and fractured his skull. Same kind of thing could have happened to the other one who sustained internal injuries.

1. Exiting a relatively warm tent when scantily clothed in subfreezing weather, would most likely be caused by a perceived threat that was INSIDE the tent.
2. If the threat was outside the tent, then they would most likely remain inside as a group, and in what they thought was relative safety. So the threat was inside the tent.
3. Assuming the wind was blowing, the tent flaps would most likely have been tied. In order to hurriedly exit through tied flaps, time and patience is required to untie the flaps. So they most likely lacked at least one of those. Which brings us back to some sort of imminent danger that was inside of the tent.
4. The imminent danger would have to have entered the tent, even though the flaps were tied. The most likely method that this could have been accomplished would be by the existence of that threat in an adjacent dimension. Orbs can exist in adjacent dimensions. Orbs were sighted by other campers, in the vicinity of this camp.
5. Orbs can be powerful spirits that are likely to be essentially almost pure energy. Some orbs can have a high level of internal electricity, that can be shot out at a target.
6. Orbs can also represent the spirit phase of three dimensional beings that can change dimensions. Those beings can be just about any size.

Conclusion: An inter-dimensional being of some type entered the tent while existing in an adjacent dimension. Once inside the tent, it took on a form that caused the occupants to fear for their lives. The tent was not tall so we can rule out a tall being. A glowing orb may have been sufficient to cause the occupants to fear for their lives. The occupants then cut the tent to escape a perceived threat that was inside the tent. The threat apparently continued to pursue the campers for 1.5 kilometers across snow that leaves footprints, but it apparently left no footprints. Orbs leave no footprints. Beings that exist in dimensions at least twice removed from ours, also leave no footprints. Some cow mutilations have had tongues removed. We can safely assume that this threat also has the ability to perform cow mutilations. Cow mutilations have not been witnessed, but have occurred in close proximity while man was present (Hunt for the Skinwalker). Blunt force trauma, may occur after death and leave no external injuries when the striking instrument was relatively soft, like a strong hand. So the malevolent inter-dimensional orb likely has a three dimensional form that contained appendages that could deliver powerful blows, perhaps while remaining invisible in another dimension. An inter-dimensional reptilian with an orb phase, comes to mind.

To answer some of my own questions…..There was a snowstorm going on. The group did not scatter but did hurriedly move towards the trees.

Orange lights were seen from 50 kilometers. Not consistent with ball lightening ?

With the weather conditions the group could have been lost a few meters away from the tent.

The group had to sense something that caused them to leave the tent. It would take a very bright light, very loud sound or vibrations to be noticed in a snowstorm, inside a tent by probably sleeping occupants. Ruling out smell and taste as simply unlikely.

Camperguy- Well the weather conditions certainly add to the idea that at least some of them went out and got lost close to camp.

I don’t necessarily think they ALL went out to investigate something. Some of them very well might have slept through the original phenomena. I’m more inclined to think that one or more went out for whatever reason, maybe to investigate something, and it was their cries for help, due to being lost (or having a fractured skull), that woke the others up. They in turn may have gone out to try and help and due to the weather, got lost too. I don’t think it can be said for sure yet that all of them went out together at the same time. Even if they went out at separate times, the would-be rescuers would be headed towards the cries for help, the footprints would overlap, and it might give the impression that the group moved as a whole.

I have to admit that I really don’t know all that much about ball lightning, so I can’t say for sure if what was reported was consistent with this phenomenon. I do know that not even experts fully understand ball lightning, so who knows? It could have been some other sort of atmospheric phenomena too, I guess. I’m thinking more and more that whatever it was, you’re right and that it would have to be something pretty major to get even one of them to leave the warmth and safety of their tent to go out in that weather.

Without shoes though? Could the shoes have been lost in the snow somehow? Those shoes, those shoes!